They Shine for You
by Grace Raven
Summary: Sometimes, America thinks Canada deserves praise, especially on his birthday. Inspired by the song Yellow by Coldplay. T for language


DISCLAIMER: I don't own the song _Yellow _by Coldplay, Mariannas Trench, Canada, America, or any other country mentioned in this story. Nor do I own Canada's national holiday or Coca-Cola. Only the story idea is mine.

_It's true.  
Look how they shine for you.  
Look how they shine for you.  
Look how they shine for...  
Look how they shine for you.  
Look how they shine for you.  
Look how they shine..._

_Look at the stars,  
Look how they shine for you.  
And all the things that you do._

**They Shine for You**

If it wasn't his birthday, Canada would've thrown his alarm clock to the wall and happily listened tot he breaking noise that would follow.

But it was his birthday—the first of July—and not even super annoying alarm clocks could ruin it.

Canada slid out of the bed, letting his body meet the cold floor—he was never much of a morning person—before standing up sleepily and making his way to the kitchen with as much enthusiasm a groggy country could muster on their national holiday. He was soberly awake, however, once he semlled the cooking pancake batter. Ah...at least the one thing engrained in his forgetful polar bear's brain was that the amout of pancakes served on this one was doubled.

Twice the amout of pancakes along with twice the amount of maple syrup. Yum.

"Good morning, Kumawhatsyourface," Canada greeted with a smile. Kumajirou looked up at his master with buttong black eyes that plainly screamed "Who?". The country sighed. "I'm Matthew, Kuma-waka-laka," he mumbled, signaling the bear away from the stove with his hand. He was humming some Marianas Trench song while he cooked the pancakes when he looked up at his cabinet door and saw a yellow post-it-note that wasn't there the day before. He peeled it off, staring at the cursive writing with curious eyes.

_Look at the stars,  
Look how they shine for you,  
And everything you do.  
Yeah, they are all yellow._

Okay...that isn't kind of creepy at all. Please note the sarcasm.

"Probably just Al playing a joke on me, eh," Canada muttered to himslef, crumbling the note and throwing it in the trash. His brother had been in his house yesterday, having a nice Canadian-American dinner as a way of awkwardly bonding with his brother. Their conversation had gone somewhere along these lines:

_"Hey, Mattie."_

_"Yes, Alfie?"_

_"Don't call me that."_

_"I will if I want to. Don't glare at me. You should know it won't work on me."_

_"Someday it will."_

_"No it won't."_

_"Yes it will. You'll see. You'll all see."_

_"Shut up, get off my table, and eat."_

_"Anyways -"_

_"That's not a word."_

_"I'm America, I don't care for the English language, remember?" (Somewhere over the rainbow, England choked on his tea and finally suffered food poisoning.)_

_"Haha, now I remember...Seriously, get off my table."_

_"I will if I want to. Anyway...s...um...it's your birthday tomorrow, right?"_

_"Thank you for finally sitting in your seat. And yes, it is. Why?"_

_"Um...I dunno...uhhh...sooooo..."_

After that, the room had been filled with stuttering and unsurity over what to say from both sides. America had left after helping his brother with cleaning the dishes and clearing the dining table, so he couldn't be acconted for the post-it-note, even though he was the most obvious suspect.

Canada sighed, giving up on the matter and serving him and Kumajirou the pancakes and fishing out the maple syrup. "_Bon appetit!"_

After breakfast, Canada headed towarts the bathroom (he left the plates to be cleaned via Kumanjirou's tongue) to the brush his teetch and do other morning necessities, minus changing his clothes. Upon entering the bathroom, though, he found his mirror wrtten upon in...was that lipstick. Why yes, yes it was. He would think it a waste of perfectly good lipstick if he wasn't, well, a male.

"Such a waste, eh." (...Stop snickering.)

He turned on the sink and wetted a small towel under the running water. He was about to ensue in the rigorous task of cleaning his large mirror when one of the red words caught his eye. **"Yellow," **it read. Whoever had done this was the same person who had left the post-it-note on his cabinet door.

**I came along,  
I wrote a song for you  
And all the things you do.  
And it was called Yellow**

"You might want to check for an ax murderer," Kumajirou said, snapping Canada from his thoughts. Canada looked down at this pet nervously.

"Heh, its probably not like that, Kumamon." Still, he might want tot borrow a gun or two from Cuba or America. Better safe than dead by an ax muderer.

Canada took one more glance at his written-on mirror before deciding that he didn't have the time to cean it and not be late to the meeting he had to attend later. Besides, it wasn't like he couldn't see his reflection—the words were written in a way that there was a margin of space for him to still see himself.

He brushed his teeth, washed his face, flossed, and combed out his unruly morning hair until hit became his slightly less unruly daily hair. Afterwards, he dressed himself in his finest business suit (he didn't bother to know which designer it came from. He was rich, but didn't choose to flaunt it around like _some _countries he knew. _France_) and sat patiently by the phone, waiting for it to ring. It was an unspoken agreement between him and his souther brother that they would call the other on the morning of their respctive birthday.

Some time later, though, the call had yet to come and the waiting nation was growing frantic that his brother had either forgotten abou thim or his birthday. Hopefully, it wasn't either of the answers.

Maybe his phone was unplugged. It had happened before—and it had cause quite the confusion—and although he had forced himself to remember never to unplug his phone, it wasn't like he didn't ever do it by accident. Yeah, that was definitely the answer. He could've pulled it out by his foot or something along those lines.

When the nation lifted the house phone to check if his hypothesis was correct, he not only found that his phone wasn't unplugged, but that there was a second post-it-note with the same cursive writing used on the first note.

_So then I took my turn,  
Oh, what a thing to have done.  
And it was all yellow._

All right, this was starting to really creep him out. Maybe he should ask for some pepper spray and a knife, as well.

Of course, he would do this after confronting America for not calling like he always did on the morning of the first of July—Canada Day—his _birthday._

* * *

Canada had ended up waiting for the call for so long that he arrived for the meeting fantastically (not fashionably, which was a fact that France would scold him on later with sparkles and rose petals surrounding him) late. He ran up to the doors, thus wrinklinig his suit and causing it to appear as though he had slept in it (yet another thing France would scold him on, only with faux tears in his eyes). Rushing his way through the way too long _ohmygodwhendotheyend _hallways, he didn't notice the fallen chair until he found himself face first on the ground, his ass positioned embarrassingly in the air along with all hopes of him looking nice on damn _Canada _Day. Oh, all that was good and maple trees, why him?

"Canada! Are you okay?" a familiar, accented voice called out. Even with his face almost permantly planted in the red carpet, he could distinctly hear the _Bong, bong, bong _of Ukraine's...well-gifted chest. He lifted his head, only to be met with a _very _pleasent view of Ukraine's well-gifted chest as said nation had bent down in front of him. "Are you all right, Mr. Canada?" Ukrained asked, switching to formaliy with the North American nation.

"I'm fine, eh." He gave her a weak smile, trying and failing to hide the pain from his fifth-degree rug burns on his face. At least he had a nice view of the Ukranian landscape to ease his pain. "Thank you for asking." She held out her hand and he took it, allowing her to pull him up. He stumbled forward slightly, grabbing her shoulders to regain balance then immeditately letting go with a red face. "Sorry!"

"It's all right!" she exclaimed, smiling beautifully. There was a moment of silence, in which Canada considered asking her why she wasn't in the meeting. However, that thought dissipated when tears appeared in Ukraine's eyes.

Commence Canada flailing.

"W-W-What are you crying for?" he asked, nervous that he had upset the woman, which was an occurance that he would suffer the wrath of Russia for.

"I-I-I-I forgot t-th-that it w-was your b...b...birthday, Mr. Canadaaaaa!" Oh damn, she was _sobbing_ now! While Canada was happy she remembered, she was still _crying _and he had no idea what to do.

"Ahhh, d-don't cry!" He pulled out his always-handy handkerchief (it was a thing trained into his, America's, Australia's, and New Zealand's heads that they should always carry a handkerchief in case of a woman crying or someone bleeding, this lesson, of course, taught by England himself) and dabbed it at her watery eyes, one hand unconsciously rubbing itself up and down her arm. She settled down quickly, reducing herself to mere hiccups and glassy eyes.

"I-I'm sorry, Mr. Canada." Oh dear, the tears were returning again. This wasn't going to be his day, was it?

"Don't worry about it. And call me Matthew, Katyusha. We're friends, right?" He laughed slightly, bringing a grin to her face.

"Y-yes, Miste - Matthew. Oh! And happy birthday. It's not much, but it was all I could do," Ukraine said, blushing lightly and handing him a small package wrapped in blue and yellow wrapping paper. "Don't open it yet!" she exclaimed when he moved to undo the turquoise ribbon from the package. He jumped, thankfully keeping ahold on the present when he did so. "Open it at home!"

"Haha, okay. I will." He turned the present around, studying the reflective foil until he spotted a red piece of paper tucked between the ribbon and the foil. "Is this a note?"

"Hm? Oh, yes, it is. But it's not from me."

Canada's head shot up at this.

"It's from...he asked me not to tell you his name, sorry. But he did ask me to tell you to open it as soon as you got it," Ukraine explained. "I wasn't able to buy you a card..." she muttered to herself, obviously forcing herself not to cry again.

Canada fearfully unfolded the paper, revealing the exact same cursive writing as before, this time with different words.

_And just skin,  
Oh yeah, you're skin and bones._

Was this person implying he was sick? His economy was taking good care of him, so where was this mystery person coming from, thinking him to be sick like Iceland?

He groaned. At least he had narrowed down the suspect to only being the countries. And that narrowed it down even more; only Russia, Belarus, Cuba, the Baltics, most of Europe, some of East Asia, and America and Mexico knew he was friends with Ukraine and that she would happily give the note to him...okay, maybe that didn't narrow it down all too well. Shit.

"Thank you, Ukraine," he said, eyes downcast from his inner turmoil over who the hell was writing all these words. He could safely assume they were lyrics to a song, though. Or a poem. Something along those lines. "Shouldn't you be in the meeting?" he added after a moments thought.

"I was waiting for you!" she said cheerfully. This woman was on both sides of the emotion spectrum, wasn't she?

He grinned. "Thank you. Let's go in, then?" He signaled to the door with his hand and she nodded, walking to the brown doorway. He followed after her, eyeing the red note once more. He flipped it over, revealing another written lyric that apparently couldn't fit on the front. The pen the country had been writing with, he guessed, had run out of ink, for the line on the back of the paper was written in bold sharpie.

**Turn it to something beautiful.**

He could feel his face heat up at this. Whoever the mystery writer was, he-she was very sweet...Damn, he was turning into a girl over this person, wasn't he? Effin' hoser.

Canada looked up at Ukraine, who was waiting for him, standing against the opened door. He nodded his head as a way of thanking her, stuffing the red note in his jacket and holding the door with his hand so that she would go in front of him—England would probably kill him if he didn't act like a gentleman to a lady. Of course, that was if England could even see him, which was not likely.

He was proven wrong, though, when he entered the conference room and was greeted with loud shouts of "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CANADA!" (he pretended not to hear to one "whoever you are!" or the loud "Ow!" that soon followed). He froze, a deer in the path of headlights, and watched, captivated, with the amount of countries standing before him with a large banner hanging above the table that read **Happy Birthday, Canada!** The heat on his face ten folded as a few of the personifications came up to him and hugged him or bashfully shook his hand. England came up to him as one of the more bashful, shaking his hand and resting his own hand on Canada's shoulder, tensly congratulating him and praising him on holding the door for Ukraine. France—being his ever over-dramatic and perverted self—pratically threw himself on his ex-colony, crying like the woman he possibly could be if he hadn't already proved everyone wrong on that assumption, and surreptitiously groped Canada's ass. Cuba—for once remembering his fellow ice-cream-loving buddy—hugged his friend, the cigar smell still strong on his shirt, and slipped an ice cream sandwich in Canada's empty pocket. "It's your favorite flavor," he whispered before releasing the shocked nation and allowing others to walk up to him.

However, the one person that didn't come to stand before Canada was America, who didn't walk into the room until everyone had finished, yawning and rubbing his cheek in a way to wake himself up. He walked past his brother, not even noticing him and instead nodding to all the nations in the room, then took his seat at the table, a free seat sitting to his left. Canada took the seat, staring at his brother and wondering why the hell his southern neighbour was ignoring him. Wasn't it enough that he hadn't called? It was an occurance that almost sent tears to Canada's indigo eyes.

The meeting began, several nations taking a chance to smile at Canada before turning their attention to the speaker—Greenland, surprisingly, seeing as the meeting was taking place in Canada, the landmass and birthday boy himself. He almost had the guts to interrupt the meeting and ask why the host country himself wasn't doing the speaking—he and his speech prepared and everything—when Mexico threw a piece of paper at him, said paper explaining that _"because its your birthday, they don't want you to do the speech. You'll still be doing your presentation, just not the opening speech. They do this all the time, according to papa."_ Canada bobbed his head, Mexico grinning then returning his attention to Greenland, who was now addressing the first person to do their presentation. Portugal stood, beaming to Canada and starting his presentation. It was something about being civil about the happening of the World Cup (Canada could still clearly remember America crying when he lost), but the fact that he was glaring at Spain as he spoke didn't really give him any credibility. Canada couldn't pay attention past Portugal's first couple of words, though, because of the hot breath he suddenly felt against his ear.

"Hey." It was America. His voice was recognizable, be it him yelling or him whispering. "Sorry about not greeting you. I didn't want to give England or Germany any chance to yell at me for being late. Also, sorry about not calling this morning. Woke up late. Can you forgive me?"

Canada smirked. "Of course I can," he whispered back. "Pay attention to Portugal. I can see Germany glaring at you for not paying attention."

"What about Artie?"

"He's smiling...it's really weird. He seems...proud, almost."

"I think its directed to you. You've been a favorite since I left."

"Haha, right. You know he still prefers you over me."

"Don't be so hard on yourself. You're a much better country than I've ever been."

Holy crap. Was America actually _not _calling himself the best country to ever live? Wow... "Never expected that out of your mouth."

"Haha, you can be expecting a lot of unexpected things today."

Before Canada could ask what his brother meant, Belgium cleared his throat, catching Canada's attention. "Your turn, honey."

He blinked. "Eh? I thought it was Spain or France's turn."

"Spain already went—" Spain nodded his head excitedly to confirm this. "—he didn't have much to say, neither did Portugal, if you're wonderin'—" Portugal nodded his head, only in a calmer manner than Spain. "—and France insists you go before him. So go ahead, darlin'," Belgium finished, smirking cattishly as she leaned back in her seat, quickly pulling the unlit pipe from Holland's mouth.

"T-thank you, Belgium, France." He opened his briefcase, moving aside his opening speech and pulling out his presentation. Like Spain and Portugal's, his presentation wasn't very long, it only covering things the G20 Summit hadn't, but when he checked if he had all his papers, he found he only had half of his presentation. He rechecked, making sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him, only to find that he still only had half of his presentation. Crap-crap-crap!

With every nation's eyes on him, Canada furiously searched through his briefcase, looking under and behind the blasted thing. He ducked under the table, knowing he was embarrassing himself but continued to look for any scattered papers. When he resurfaced, he opened his briefcase once more, only to find the other half of his presentation stacked perfectly in the briefcase, as though it had always been there. _'What the fuck...?'_ was all he could think as he picked it up. Even though the papers looked as though they hadn't been touched by anyone but Canada, when he lifted the first page to check if it really _was _his presentation, he found another red piece of paper, written on with sharpie and with sloppy cursive that seemed to had been rushed.

_**But you know, you know I love you so.**_

He flipped the papers over, he face red yet again, and found that, this time, a pecil had been used to write on the back of the last paper.

_You know I love you so._

"Mattie," America said in a stage whisper, surprising the country in question. "Go up, you're holding up the meeting." America gave him the sunniest smile Canada had ever seen on his face, tilting his head towards the podium at the front. Canada figited—things were becoming creepier than England's incredibly rare, proud smile. His eyes scanned over all the nations in the room, searching for anyone who seemed guilty, only to find that all of them—minus the perpetually emotionless—had their mouths upturned in a way that screamed that they were hiding a juicy secret. The look on Hungary's face scared him the most.

Canada power-walked to the podium, only slowing down once he was behind the microphone. "Sorry about the wait. My eyes were playing a trick on me, eh." A small rumble of laughter errupted, but he couldn't tell if they were agreeing or laughing at _him. _"I would like the begin by bringing up the most recent G20 Summit. As you attendees know..."

* * *

**Grace Raven: **Just clearing this up: The Canada-Ukraine scene was not a pairing scene. She was the first person I could think of that would wait outside in the hall for Canada if he was late. Did I do her character justice? I only just started writing Hetalia fanfiction, so I'm a little rusty with characterization.

Oh, and...

ARE YOU BORED TO DEATH YET? 8D

* * *

_I swam across,  
I jumped across for you.  
Oh what a thing to do.  
'Cause you were all yellow._

Okay, how in all that is good and hockey did someone manage to tape up a piece of paper on the restroom mirror _without _anyone tearing it down? Really.

Other than that, how did said someone tape up the paper—with written lyrics and all—and know that he would need the restroom before leaving for his humble abode? He was now completely sure he was being stalked by an ax murder with a porno mustache. (The porno mustache was added when Canada was putting together what his stalker looked like in his mind while he ignored France's nowhere near appropiate speech.)

"Yo, Mattie, you sick? You've been in there forever," America's muffled voice said as he knocked on the restroom's closed door.

"Eh? O-oh, I'm fine! Sorry!" Canada exclaimed, opening the door to reveal his worried brother, who smiled when he saw Canada. America ruffled Canada's blond hair, throwing an arm around his younger brother.

"Just don't scare me like that and we're all fine. I'm gonna head home now. Happy birthday." America gave his brother a full-out hug then pulled away (_'is he actually blushing?...Holy crap, he is. Where's my camera when I need it?'_, Canada thought to himself). "See ya." With that, America walked out of the building and to his blue Ford F-150*. He waved goodbye to Canada before driving away. If Canada was correct, his brother was either going to drive back to his house or follow England all the way to back to London to convince him to come to his own birthday on the fourth of July.

The norther nation chuckled. His brother was so predictable sometimes.

He entered his white Honda Civic**, deciding to check up on the border between him and America. It was a year-to-year ritual of his to check upon the gates that may "never be closed". He wasn't sure if America did the same thing, but he never bothered to ask. If America wanted him to know, he'd tell him.

He turned on the radio, nicely surprised that his favourite song was playing. Although, that shouldn't be much of a shock, seeing as his favourite song coincided with the number one song on the Top 10 list. And the number one song was played on almost every radio station, no matter what.

Canada's pleasurable mood was ruined when he reached the gates.

Someone—some _fucker _who had somehow gone unnoticed by the security cameras—had fucking _written _on the _gates_ with_ **spray paint**_. Mother fucking spray paint.

"WHO THE HELL DID THIS?" Canada exploded, about ready to fucking _punch _the words off the gates. A few of the guards ran up to him to restrain him and move him away before he scared any of the people driving through the border.

"Sir!" a border official called, running up to the enraged country. "Sir, calm down!"

"Why the hell should I?" Canada snarled. This place was a precious thing between both him and his brother and he _wasn't _about to let some fucker get away with defacing the gates!

"The spray paint is washable, sir."

Canada's anger dropped down, and he was relatively calm again, but he was still agitated. "Then how the did the guards not see this or have it washed off?"

"The guards from last night were both paid and threatened into silence. The only thing they'll tell me is that everything written on there is washable and not to be washed off until you read it. Release him," he said, the last sentence directed to the guards restraining Canada. They did as ordered, returning to their job immediately.

"Fine. But I want you to call a cleaning crew this instant and have this gone as soon as possible," the country ordered, huffing as he walked towards the gates to read whatever shit was sprayed upon them.

**I drew a line, I drew a line for you.  
Oh what a thing to do.  
And it was all yellow.**

Canada returned to his car and screamed into the seat. So now his stalker had dared to paint upon his border with his brother? If he ever found out who this was, he was going to _kill _them. He stayed seated in his car until he saw the cleaning crew washing away the spray paint. Putting his car in revearse, Canada backed out of his parking spot and drove home, gripping the steering wheel and muttering under his breath all the way.

* * *

**Grace Raven: **I don't know much about how the border works, like if they have security cameras or guards, since I live so far from the border and never bothered reading about it. So the guards and security cameras and cleaning crew are all made up from what I know.

*Ford F-150 is the most popular car in the US as of February 2010.

**The Honda Civic is the most popular car in Canada as of March 2010.

Yes, I had to look up both of those. I'm such a girl.

* * *

The last thing Canada wanted when he returned home was to find a piece of notebook paper taped on his front door, even more lyrics written upon it.

And just skin,  
Oh yeah, you're skin and bones.  
Turn it to something beautiful.  
But you know, for you I'd bleed myself dry.  
For you I'd bleed myself dry.

He would've crumbled the paper up and thrown it away and not given it a second thought—because really, the last thing he wanted to deal with was some creeper with no life stalking him on his birthday—if it wasn't that at the end of the notebook paper, there was a note for him.

_Go to Manitou Beach later today and all this will be explained._

* * *

And so, at eight-o'-clock, Canada—also known as Matthew—arrived at Manitou Beach, removed his sneakers, and walked through the cold sand. He had successfully calmed down thanks to a small smidgen of weed and Coca-Cola. He stared up at the night stars...They were the most beautiful thing he'd seen that day.

What he didn't expect in his moments of peace was the playing of the acoustic guitar and a lovely voice signing: "_It's true. Look how they shine for you. Look how they shine for you. Look how they shine for..." _Canada turned around, his eyes widening when he saw none other than his beloved brother America.

"Hey, Mattie!" America greeted with his famous smile. In his hands was a plain guitar, and over his chest was a red hoodie with a white maple leaf plastered in the middle. America took a deep breath, continuing to sing. "_Look how they shine for you. Look how they shine for you. Look how they shine..." _America stood next to his northern brother, throwing an arm around his arm and turning him around, towards the ocean and towards a mass of Canadian people holding up the Canadian flag, all smiling and preparing to sing as America was.

Together, Canada's citizens and America himself sung: _"Look at the stars, look how they shine you. And all the things that you do."_

"I love you, Mattie," America whispered.

For the first time in years, Canada cried tears of happiness.

* * *

**OMAKE**

"So let me get this straight: You made me think some guy was stalking me and defiled our border with washable spray paint all for this?"

"Yep! It was all apart of my plan!"

"You're an idiot..."

"You know you love me and my present."

"So what if I do?"

* * *

**Grace Raven: **And it's done! This took me, like, 3 days because I was surprisingly busy for a girl in a hotel. But oh well. At least I got it finished in time! I'm thinking of doing something like this for the fourth of July, but I can't imagine Canada being all sappy and singing a song to America like America did to Canada. Any thoughts?

Happy Birthday, Canada!  
From America, with love.


End file.
